Tuesday, March 20, 2018

Miracle Man for the Welsh Marches

When I thought up this kind of person for Welsh Marches, I was thinking of Miracle Max from The Princess Bride movie


A Miracle Man (or Wise Woman)  is a strange foreign person who comes from a tradition other than pagan, Cymric and Christian. Someone who might be from the Levant, the Orient, or darkest Africa. He has different secrets and wonders to share.

This kind of person doesn't get his powers from God, but rather from the secret knowledge of his people and traditions. He is a very foreign person in this time and place and usually keeps to himself. He does not get on well in Christian society due to fear and superstition about people who are different. But unlike a Monk or other holy man, his miracles can be purchased for money.

Furthermore, many of these miracles are not available immediately. It takes one day for the miracle worker to prepare them. They usually come in the form of a device or medicine, such as a pill or elixir, or involve some sort of surgery. They might even be put into single-use magic items that the PCs can use when the time is right.

The weapons allowed to a miracle man vary by cultural background. Any cultural background you develop should reflect the realm the miracle man comes from.

Here are the Wonders a miracle man can perform.


Here are some sample backgrounds and their associated Virtues and Vices. You are welcome to change these to better reflect your concept of peoples and cultures or invent your own. The main thing is that they should reflect a culture which is alien to Christendom of the early Middle Ages. This reflects the inherent distrust and superstitious nature of people from most every culture at this time.


Note that in this case, Oriental refers to people from the Near East rather than Asia. If you wish, you could make up an Asian miracle man or even one from the New World or Australia who somehow got back to Europe.

This should be an NPC class - it's not balanced in the same way as a Holmes Monk is. He can conceivably mass-produce magic items, which is a bad idea for a PC character, along with having all the abilities of a normal Monk.



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